Crossovers and SUV are the top sellers even among luxury automakers

Who won and who lost in February

March 6, 2017

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February is in the bag, which means we can dive into some sales data to see who won and lost in February, and with what products. Yes, it’s early to make any definitive year-end predictions -- SUVs and crossovers are a safe bet for sales, though, even among luxury automakers more traditionally associated with cars.

Bentley saw a 150 percent increase, jumping from 62 to 155. Expanding the portfolio with the addition of the Bentayga SUV added 53 of those 155 new sales. Jaguar saw a 130.4 percent increase -- thanks to the F-Pace SUV, sales ballooned from 1,512 to 3,484. If this isn’t any indication of where there's money to be made, we don’t know what is.

Maserati rounds out the fourth spot with an increase of 49.3 percent, thanks -- unsurprisingly -- to 305 Levante SUVs sold. Car sales were also up from 728 to 782.

Cadillac's new 2017 XT5 SUV became its sales leader, moving 4,291 units in February. That's more than all the cars the automaker sold the same month -- 4,065. Every car except for the CT6, another new model for 2017, from the brand was down between 25.8 to 37.5 percent.

Luxury automakers like Porsche, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi have expanded their SUV and crossover lineups in the last decade. Their effort to fill every possible segment with some sort of crossover is paying off.

At Porsche, the Cayenne and Macan account for the majority of sales. The Macan is the hot seller of the two with 1,575 units sold. The Cayenne is next in line with 1,156 sold. While the Macan was up 55.6 percent, the Cayenne had a 13 percent decrease in sales. In February, Porsche sold 906 cars, including the Boxster, 911, Cayman and Panamera.

Crossover and SUVs sales at BMW have yet to eclipse its car sales, but that trend is likely to end soon. Car sales were down slightly in February for the German automaker, 12,359 to 11,837, while crossover sales increased from 10,139 to 10,721.

Mercedes-Benz is selling more cars than crossovers and SUVs, though just slightly. Crossover and SUV sales accounted for 11,731 sales compared to the 12,791 cars sold in February. The C-class is the automaker’s top-selling marque, but the GL/GLS-class saw the largest increase in sales -- 101.2 percent, moving from 1,226 to 2,467. More telling, overall crossover sales were up 13 percent while car sales grew by just 1.5 percent.

Audi, which has just four offerings falling into the crossover and SUV segment, moved 7,044 units, up 35.8 percent. Those sales outpaced car sales of 6,697 units in February. Interestingly, the R8 sports car is up 622.2 percent, going from nine to 65 units sold. It’s not all doom and gloom for car sales.